


Notions

by Missy



Category: Carrie (1976), Carrie - All Media Types, Evil Dead (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, College, Community: horrorbigbang, Demonic Possession, Demons, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Michigan, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:54:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sue meets the school legend, and the school legend helps Sue get over what happened to her on Prom Night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HorrorBigBang in '13.

**__**

Michigan University, Dearbon Campus, 1982

The light outside Sue Snell’s window is peculiar enough to give her a sharp, quick start. Rolling toward the creamy orange beam, she rolled up the blind and stared outward. 

As always, it was just the sun.

Sue heaved a sigh and sat heavily back down upon the bed. For a moment she’d been reminded…but no, it was foolish to look back. But the peculiar glow always sucked her backward, automatically, to Chamberlin – to the spring when everything changed, when everything had suddenly fallen into pieces.

Yawning, she rolled toward the rim of her bed. Above her, Yvonne snored; she’d likely gotten home after dawn and was sleeping off her latest hangover. Sue retreated to the bathroom, scrubbed her face, powdered her body, and prepared for her morning class – she’d scheduled herself heavily with quiet deliberation, pushing back thoughts of the past back with a heavy heart. There was no time to laze about – no respite time for her. She didn’t want it, anyway.

After brushing her teeth, she strapped on her watch and got to work dressing for the day – nothing too pretentious – a teeshirt, some jeans, sneakers. It was an ordinary ensemble and she wanted nothing more than to look normal. She organized her half-finished homework and pulled together her sweater. It was cold here, never as cold as Maine, but with a biting chill influenced by a lake breeze instead of an oceanic one.

Leaving Yvonne sleeping, she picked up a breakfast at the blue-and-orange walled student union – oranges and cereal, toast – kid’s stuff. She could almost hear her mother belching saccharine over her shoulder as she finished every morsel and bussed her empty orange tray.

The usual procession of classes were a relief. Science, politics, literature and mathematics competed for attention in Sue’s mind, but her favorite class – which she’d picked up as an elective on a whim while registering – was psychology. The tragedy of Bates High School had lain behind this choice; her therapist had been enormously helpful in helping her choose the right path. In the end, she wanted to help others – help, though she did not say it aloud – people like Carrie White. She would become a psychiatrist, a counselor, a helper for lonely souls like the girl she’d never had the courage to befriend. 

Sue had dedicated herself to making a difference. That was the frequently-echoed praise she heard every time the media came to check in on the ‘lucky one’, as she had been dubbed by the international press. The only child to have survived the Chamberlain disaster, the only survivor of the class of ’79. She often saw them – reporters, soldiers for the tabloid wars who had covered her time on the stand with peanut-munching excitement, and commented upon her brief time in psychological counseling as their sorrow were the greatest part of misery. How dare she not soldier the whole mess herself – or worse yet, poor little thing, she never really had a chance against the terrible things that tried to overtake her. It was as if they were waiting for the return of Bloody Mary herself. Or bloody Carrie, perhaps. Sue had to shake off the weight of their existence, the fact that she was something of a circus freak in the public’s eye, on a daily basis. 

She could, in short, understand how Ash Williams felt.

Ash, now he was a difficult subject, mostly because nobody dared talk to him in person, so every scrap of knowledge about him had been passed around in stealth behind his back. While those legends had spread around the campus like a strain of influenza, the story generally remained the same no matter who told it. It read this way: he had once been an average student like them, with a beautiful girlfriend. His little sister, Cheryl, had been a freshman at the school when they took a trip to Tennessee over fall break with his best friend and his friend’s girl. Ash had returned home completely alone, minus his family, girlfriend, and friends – and one hand. He’d stumbled out of a cave in London four days after an exceedingly rare tornado struck the country – it had not been some strange diversion. He sported a full beard, long hair, and wild stories – he’d been escorted through Heathrow by two armed guards and put on a plane directly headed to a psych evaluation. For months afterward he was held on lockdown at Henry Ford, before finally being released after it was determined that he wasn’t a danger to himself or to others. No one at MU had believed what had transpired until a series of monster attacks plagued him right there at his crappy part-time job at the housewares counter at his local S-Mart. Now it was impossible for the rest of the world to look away – at least for the moment. It had been remarkably peaceful in Detroit for the past six months, apparently. Such a story would have been unbelievable to Sue at one point, but she could only shrug at them now; in a way, she appreciated Ash taking the heat off of her very existence. Then she saw him, and she piquantly thought to herself that she would have seen the truth in Ash’ s story after noticing his enormous gauntlet hand prosthetic – how many of those were hanging around cabins in the middle of the woods, even ones belonging to busybody archeologists? 

He was otherwise a quiet sort, unless someone mentioned the monsters around him, at what point he would sharply correct them and segue into a grandiose tale about how he’d saved the world from total destruction and would have – he swore to God – been king if he’d decided to stay.

Sue was the only one who didn’t try to roll her eyes at him for the sake of preserving her sanity – she knew, all too well – what could happen if you pushed somebody too far. But even with all of that proof on Ash’s side, he’d been labeled an odd duck – wildly popular with the women around him, yet an object of fear and derision among his fellow men.

When Sue entered her final class of the day – psychology, naturally – she found him where he always sat – back row, last table, feet propped up and staring smugly into blank space. She swore he’d learned how to sleep sitting up with his eyes wide open, like a broken doll. Scars flashed silver in his complexion, overlaying a clearly and sharply-wrought face, and a dark slash of eyebrow and a little nose that ended in a plump upturn. His face was a mean one, and all of those features could abruptly draw downward into a harsh, frightening glower. 

Sue rested her books upon the white semi-desk, preparing herself for what was likely to be a very long, very exocentric lecture. Professor Hadonfeld was a radical sort, fond of strangely-espoused theories on the state of the human condition. Still, she honed in on her professor, on his self-important lecturing, until all of the words scribbled down in her notebook began to blur into a bloody blot, into the blue-white hand splotched with pink desperately clinging to her wrist, desperately trying to get her to understand what pain truly felt like…

Abruptly, the hall lights flickered back to life, and Sue blinked through the suddenly blinding bright white haloing her own milky hands. Her eyes jerked upward to note that Professor Haddonfeld had strolled over to his desk and cupped the wooden lip of it, his beady, intense eyes scanning his students. “That’s the effect of pre-conceived notions upon the human brain. I’m sure all of you have struggled with similar thoughts at one point or another – ‘he’s fat, he must be lazy’, or negatively comparing feminine behavior to masculine.” He pushed away from the desk, strolled across the parquet floor. “Your exercise for the afternoon is to team up with one of your fellow students. Each of you should write down five things you initially assume of your partner upon seeing them – then five things you’ve learned from having a short conversation with them. Hopefully, those things will be quite different – and hopefully you’ll be able to keep it in mind that your own clients will be similarly complex when you’re tasked with guiding them through their private psychological minefields.” He locked eyes quite deliberately with Sue before clapping his hands. “Begin!”

Sue cringed at the percussive sound, that simple noise forcing her to focus and remember at the same time. She forced the memories to fade away and break apart – when she opened her eyes, it was over. 

The room started buzzing as people paired off, and she moved through the syrupy dawn of her awakening toward the person nearest her - she turned to her left, right, trying furtively to make eye contact with her seat mates and failing. They cleared out and away, and Sue squirmed around, trying to find somebody free and willing.

Naturally, Ash was the only loner in the pack.

She steeled herself before rising to approach him; he was uniformly brusque and she didn’t expect better treatment from him just because they were both in dire straits. He was hunched over his notebook, droplets of sweat running down his face as he scribbled down notes in quick, brief bursts. He waited for a moment then cleared her throat.

“I guess it’s just you and me,” she said blandly. 

His head shot up, and those cruel eyes focused on her before lowering back to this paper. “The old kook’s making us do some kinda touchy-feely new age crap again, isn’t he?”

“I guess you could call it that.” Sue’s hand encircled her purse strap and raced up and down it, a nervous gesture she’d mastered since coming out of therapy. “We’re supposed to look at each other and write down five things we assume about each other, then talk for awhile, and write down five things we’ve learned from spending time together.” His features sharped again, and she bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry we’re the only two left, but if you bear with me, I promise we’ll get this over with as quickly as possible.”

Ash thought it over for a second, then grumbled, flipping over the page. “What the hell does he want us to do again?”

Sue huffed out an impatient sigh. “Look at me, then write down five things you think you know about me.”

“…This data’s gonna be corrupt,” he muttered, but obeyed anyway, aware of the fact that they were both completely trapped by what their professor wanted. Sue, unsure of how to handle the situation, sat down beside Ash and started scribbling down her own thoughts. The words came to her easily _Mean. Stubborn. Dangerous. Distracted._

She hovered over the last word. It was one that fit him thoroughly, but one, she had to admit, that also described her well. Biting her bottom lip, she looked up from the page.

He’d already finished writing.

“Took you long enough,” he snorted. Picking up his slip of paper, he said, “so what now, are we supposed to exchange them?” 

“He didn’t say.”

Ash leaned on his elbow. “Right. So what comes next? Are we supposed to talk?”

She sighed. “Has that man ever been clear about anything?” Ash’s derisive grin forced Sue to give him a smile of her own. “I guess you know as much about me as I know about you.”

Ash immediately dropped all sense of pretense. “Yeah. You were in Maine when all of that freaky shit went down with that chick.” 

She cringed. “It wasn’t freaky- at least not in the way you probably mean it. And that’s all i want to say about that, got it?” Her eyebrow rose. “Want to tell me about what happened in Tennessee?” 

He laughed. “Hell no. With my luck I won’t even have to wait long to show you.”

The lights started flickering. Automatically, Sue glanced upward. “Show me?” The wind grew stronger, and before she could wonder who’d opened up a window one of the girls standing right behind her swiveled around. Sue remembered her face vaguely from a sorority function – her name was Sarah, and she was a Bi Theta Cappa. ‘Was’, apparently, was the operative adjective.

She looked terrible. Her eyes were sunken and irisless, her face white-green and cracked all over, leaving dark wounds where a flawless surface had once stood. When she smiled, sharp teeth had replaced her fronts and veneers, and they were covered with slime and grot. Sue opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out – not even a sound. Sarah, however, didn’t require the benefit of the English language now – she lurched over the seats, toward Ash, with her beclawed hands spread wide.

Sue would chastise herself for her inaction later. Stillness and ignorance were two things that would, without fail, get you killed in a situation like this one, and he managed to make herself a sitting target in two seconds. Her shock was understandable; she’d seen Sarah last week, and now she looked like she’d been sucked dry in two seconds. 

Sue’s dead-in-her throat scream didn’t alert Ash, but the hot blast of Sarah’s foul smelling breath definitely did. His fleshly hand connected with Sue’s face, and while she took a hard tumble onto the parquet floor Ash reared forth with his metal hand, punching the now-dead Sarah straight in her jaw. While Sue tried to calm her reeling mind, she heard Ash’s chainsaw wail to life over her head, then felt an icy gout of liquid jet forth onto her face, hands, arms, and new Foreigner teeshirt. Now she could scream – an errant trampling foot belonging to her classmate helped her release it. But Ash ignored her and quietly cut the monster to flecks, wrecking the seat it had been kneeling upon, bruising himself as the creature flailed with stumps to connect with his face. 

Sue lay prone until she heard the saw power down. Then she blinked up through the gore and noticed that Ash stood sentry over her, waiting for some sort of gesture to let him know she’d survived.

Su delivered it gingerly, rolling over onto her belly – she’d landed face-up when Ash had knocked her to the ground, forcing her to bash her head against the hard floor. She rubbed the back of her head and squirmed into a sitting position, eyeing the rapidly melting form of what had once been a blonde, vivacious coed. “What happened to her?” Then, because it seemed like the more important question, “was that thing?”

Ash had returned his saw to its proper place and was checking on his gun. Sue said nothing while he checked the chamber – counting bullets. Somehow he’d modified the shotgun to fire multiple rounds – twelve shots, and he’d apparently planted two into the monster. Planting two fresh bullets into the rifle’s belly, Ash patted his sawed-off with a clear sense of pride. He dripped blood, at least some of it his own, stemming from a forehead cut over one arched eyebrow, but he didn’t reach up to rub it away. Instead, Ash took calm stock of his weaponry. Only Sue’s question made him look up, and briefly at that; his look suggested moderate self-disdain. “Deadite,” he said. “It’s what I call ‘em. I can explain more later. Right now I have to fix this…” He pointed to his forehead. “Come with me, your face’s seen better days.” he let out a piercing whistle. “Yo, prof, can I have a note for the infirmary for me and Sue?”

Professor Haddonfield still sat at his desk, scribbling madly in his pad. Ash’s voice roused him from his study – his eyes left the page but not his attention, until he seemed to realize the smell of rot and mold wasn’t coming from its usual spot on the ceiling. At last, he diverted his attention to his gore-soaked students, then noticed his empty classroom, the wrecked and gore-strewn seats, and the sizzling black goo filled with mealworms and snakes and crystalizing bile lying at their feet.

Sighing, he tsked and said, “again Ashley?”

“Yeah, again,” Ash blurted. “I told admissions this was a thing. If they want me to keep me away from everybody else, I can do home study. Don’t wanna keep messing up your pretty floors.”

“Well, no one said you should be cloistered.” Shaking his head, Haddonfield scratched out two notes, then pulled them free from his tiny legal pad. “If you want to take a hot shower first, the basketball team’s at an away game. Everything on the second floor should be free.”

“Got it, thanks.” Ash watched the professor stick the two notes, with great ceremony, at the edge of his desk. Ash glanced down at Sue then, raising an eyebrow. “Coming?”

Sue blurted out the first thing on her mind without further thought. “That’s what happened to you in Tennessee?” 

He clicked the chamber closed, checked the guns’ sites, and then spun it overhead back into his holster. Sue hadn’t noticed the holster he’d strapped to his outer thigh before, and, as he filled it with a chainsaw she found she couldn’t stop staring.   
He remained stone-faced, cold of eye. “Told you you wouldn’t have to wait long.”

She couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice. “And this happens to you all the time?”

He shrugged. “Every other week. Maybe more, like I told the prof. Look, it’s no big deal – y’need a hand up?”

He reached for her with the metal one, and she stared at it for a painfully long moment before taking it. Careful not to touch the melting mess that had been Sarah, Sue grabbed her bag and schoolwork and followed him, shoulders slumped, the way she’d always followed Tommy through the halls of Bates High. Ash grabbed the two notes but quickly passed one to Sue, then led her into the hallway. 

“Did you kill it?” Someone asked him.

“Yeah yeah...uh huh,” he responded to another’s query. He was all right, or so he said – when Sue noticed how much fresh blood trickled from his head wound she wondered how he could possibly remain upright and able to throw verbal barbs. But he kept up the banter until, finally, they reached the main staircase situated at the right end of the lecture hall. He turned about, meeting the end of the hallway and the end of the line with a slight smirk on his face. “Ladies and gents, class is back in session.”

“How about for you?”

That inspired Ash, at last, toward laughter. “I’ve got a little appointment with a sweet little nurse on the fifth floor.”

They made their slippery exit with all of the dignity of a couple of seals, but the rousing applause followed them all the way up the staircase. Ash’s entire demeanor changed once they were alone – his shoulder stooped and his features turned downward, he nearly dragged Sue upstairs until they finally reached the nurse’s desk.

They bypassed her secretary, barging right into the large recovery room, which was filled with puking students apparently still hung over from MU’s big varsity basketball victory over Southern Methodist. The nurse in charge, who had been at the furthest end of the room applying ice to a student’s bumped nose, was plump, heavy-set, with kind eyes and graying red hair. Her green eyes shot toward the doorway as it opened, and when she caught sight of the two newcomers hovering in the doorway she let out a sigh.

“Oh Ash. Not again.”

“Yeah,” Ash glowered, toting Sue across the room and to one of the unoccupied cots. “Had a little accident in psychology.”

“I really wish you’d figure out why this keeps happening,” she sighed. “Thomas, keep that ice on your knee and let me know if it feels worse.” The nurse then stopped at her supply cabinet and pulled out a length of surgical thread, a sterilized needle and a bottle of painkillers and antiseptic ointment. “How many were there this time?” she asked Ash in a stage whisper.

“Only one,” Ash whispered back. “You don’t have to rub it in,” he added, frowning.

She shook her head. “Have a seat….oh! You too, dear,” she said, noticing Sue. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I have a cut,” Sue said, pointing toward her elbow. “I just need a band aid.”

“And I’ll get one for you,” she said breezily. “You sit still and try not to move around much.” 

Ash followed her instructions without much complaint and plopped down on one of the cots – Sue followed him directly without thinking, settling her backpack between them to sever as a proper barrier. After a long moment, she shot a look askance at him.

But Ash wasn’t paying any attention to her. In fact, he was busy playing with the straps connecting his artificial right hand to his wrist. Sue looked away; it seemed wrong to interrupt such a private moment. She’d never known anyone with a physical handicap before, and Ash didn’t seem to be the patient sort. Not that she didn’t consider Ash perfectly capable; the metal hand was, she had to admit, rather intimidating, especially at such short range. It gleamed in the low lighting, as if he spent a lot of time polishing it.

Now was as good a time as any to start fixing her own hair, so Sue went to work re-arranging her stress-and-grime-frizzed curls. It was easier to converse with him when she didn’t have to look him in the eyes. “Why haven’t you tried to stop it?” she wondered aloud, quite abruptly, while she tried not to look up.

It was the wrong thing to say at the exact wrong time. “It’s none of your damn business why,” he said. Her features stiffened, and she bit her lip. That turned Ash quiet, kinder, more reflective. “If I knew how to, I would’ve taken care of it years ago. The only person in this time who knew how to translate the blasted language is taking a long dirt nap in Boston Cemetery, and I haven’t met anyone else who has a clue about what Kandar Castle is.”

“What about the language?” she asked. “Has anyone tried to translate…”

He reached out and snagged her wrist, sharply, quickly. “Nobody reads from the book,” he growled. “You hear me?” His eyes flared maniacally as he drew her close in a wild panic. “IF you read from it, people die. You understand? People _die_!” His speech, transmuted by the nurse’s suddenly prinpicking the area of his wound with a needle, ended on a muted whisper. The nurse sewed his wound together before sealing it with a line of antibiotic gel and a bandage. Ash continued as the nurse shifted her attention to Sue’s hand wound. “I have no clue how the damn book works, all right? I just know it’s soaked in bad mojo and I never wanna see the blasted thing again. Even if I did wanna lay eyes on it, the thing’s under lock and key at Professor Knowby’s university.” Ash shrugged, a gesture that turned into a wince when the nurse jabbed him with a needle. “So this is my life. I’m used to it.”

“What about the other people? The ones you have to kill to make it out alive?”

Ash’s jaw locked. “They’re collateral damage,” he said, shoving his way off the bench. “Are you gonna be all right?”

“Yeah,” she said, and he grabbed his gun and headed for the exit. “Wait, we have to finish this report…”

“I know. Just look me up at my dorm sometime.” With that, he was gone.

“But where do you…” she started, her ‘live’ trailing off into silence. “Oh damn.”

The nurse plastered her cut. “There you are.” She glanced at Ash’s retreating back and sighed. “That poor boy. “

“Poor? Ash?!”

“Yes,” she said. “This mess of his effects him more than he lets on, y’know,” she said. “Why, after he got back from wherever he came from, he had to go through so much therapy.” She shook her head. “It’s tragic, y’know. A sin.” She gently finished affixing Sue’s bandage. “Okay, you’re good to go, honey. Do ya need a pass to get to your next class?”

She shook her head. “That was my last one.”

“Okay, be safe now.”

Sue stood, knees shaky, but managed to dodge the various puke buckets on her way to her dorm room.

****   
Sue had been able to tune out the gawking of the various people she passed by on her way to the dorm, but she definitely couldn’t ignore Yvonne’s gawking.

“Holy shit, what happened to you?”

“Ash Williams,” said Sue, dropping her books and making a beeline for the shower. Naturally, while she spun the taps and prepared a good, long soak, Yvonne wouldn’t leave her alone.

“You were with Ash Williams. THAT Ash Williams?” she could almost hear the graceless sink of Yvonne’s jaw toward the floor. “Sue, you need to promise me you won’t y hang out with that dude. Like, the whole campus knows he’s bad news!”

“And I know that from personal experience,” Sue declared. She wadded up her clothing and tossed it into a white bag – she’d have to plug double the change into the machine to clean it out this time. With a grunt, she poured an entire bottle of bath oil into the tub before stepping in. “I’m not into him, Yvonne He’s not my type – or anyone’s type. He’s too busy trying not to get himself killed.”

“Wow.” A long pause. She heard the clickity-clack of Yvonne’s heels hitting the floor. “So, is he cute up close?”

Sue let out a frustrated groan. “Oh God, you’re really...”

“Well, I just wanted to know!” Yvonne said. “Nobody can even get close to him – you’re like, one in a million, Sue.”

“And I wish I wasn’t,” Sue muttered, dunking herself under the suds to soak her hair. “I’m going out for dinner when I’m done – are you hungry?”

“I guess I could go for something. Dinner hall?”

“Not after the day I’ve had. McDonalds?”

Yvonne giggled. Bedsprings squeaked. “You are ultra-ultra, Sue Snell.”

**** 

An hour later, Sue and Yvonne were strolling back to their dorm. Sue hadn’t meant to maneuver their stroll past Ash’s dorm, but there it was – the plain brown brick building that housed him, isolated from the rest of the student body like a chainmail-wearing Rapunzel.

“So then Joey told me he’d show me a ‘real’ anaconda, and I was like, as if that’s an anaconda! I mean, I’ve totes seen the real deal before, and his was like ‘ugh’, y’know?” Yvonne snapped her gum, skidding to a halt in her lime-green LA Girls as Sue paused. “Like…hello Sue?” She frowned, raised an eyebrow, stared back over her shoulder at the building upon which Sue had fixed her gaze. “Oh. Is he in there?”

“He who?”

Yvonne nudged Sue. “Y’know who.”

“Oh God, please shut up.”

“No,” Yvonne said. “Not until you go in there and give him a kiss.”

“You’re going to be waiting forever, because that’s never going to happen.”

“So you say,” said Yvonne. Then she bent forward, reached into the flower bed before her, and plucked out a rock.

“You wouldn’t….” Sue’s jaw dropped as Yvonne flung the rock. “Yvonne!”

“I’m just trying to help you out Sue, geez,” she said, then picked up another pebble and hurled it. After four more rocks, during which Sue tried to make a break for it and was hauled back beside Yvonne’s side. 

Ash’s window opened, and his head shot through the window. The tension inherent upon his features drained away at the sight of the two women. “Oh. What do you want?”

Yvonne elbowed him. “Shirtless. Bonus.”

“Uh, we just wanted to…” Sue trailed off, scanned Ash’s trim form with her eyes, and blinked. “Say hello,” she said.

“Hi,” Ash glowered, reached for the sill.

“Aren’t you going to invite us up?” Yvonne wondered.

Ash raised an eyebrow at her. “I only do that with nice girls,” he replied snottily. 

“We’re nice,” Yvonne insisted, tossing her curls. “We’ve the nicest girls in the whole wide world!”

“Nice girls don’t wreck a guy’s concentration,” Ash declared.

“What’s so important?” wondered Sue. His dismissiveness had finally raised her dander enough to force her to talk. 

“I’m working on something.” He glanced from her face to Yvonne’s. “Something that ain’t any of your business.”

“Well geez,” Yvonne remarked. “If you’re gonna be a jerk, then I’ll have Sue tell everyone you’re a dork in her little report.”

“Do you think I care?” Ash didn’t, obviously, and Sue gritted her teeth against the obviousness of it. Of course, Yvonne simply plunged on with her opinions.

“Okay, then,” Sue grabbed Yvonne by the arm. “We’re gonna just be going…Yvonne’s got an archeology final she needs to study for.”

“Her?” Ash’s eyebrow rose. “SHE studies archeology?” 

“So?” Sue said. “I like dinosaurs, they’re bitching.”

“That explains everything,” muttered Ash. “Look, I guess I can wait ten minutes. Only ten minutes. If you can get up here by then.” 

He shut the window and pulled the blind, as Yvonne’s squeal rent Sue’s eardrum. Dragging her friend over the concrete and toward the doorway, Sue said, “I told you.” Two minutes later they were up three flights of stairs and knocking on Ash’s door.

To Yvonne’s visible disappointment, he wore a shirt. 

“Come on in,” he said, making way for them both.

Sue glanced about the place as she set down her purse and awkwardly sat upon the edge of Ash’s bed – the only hospitable-looking piece of furniture in the room. It was a classic bachelor’s apartment; littered with fast food wrappings, tv guides, magazines and other junk, which liberally carpeted the floor. There was a bed upon which old clothing and bright blue bedding had been left to fester for an untold amount of time; they smelled equally of fabric softener and b.o. A bedside table was filled with old pictures turned halfway toward the wall, a water glass, and a blue lamp with a clay pedestal; there was also a hot plate and a stack of groceries – boxes of ramen, and piles of fried chicken and fries heaped on a paper plate, a half-prepared fast food orgy. The wall was spackled over with maps that showed the heavily forested topography of the area; she took a closer look as casually as she could and saw charts – ways in and out of the campus with thick red lines marking emergency routes. It was an opus of paranoia, and the only nod Ash had made to traditional college bachelorhood was a row of pin-up posters; all of them featuring women in semi-nudity. She made particular note of the pin-up taped to the wall facing her; a red-head with enormous hair leered back at her, cupping her breast and holding them toward the camera like a cornucopia of flesh. Sue averted her eyes, scratching the back of her neck in embarrassment. 

Yvonne, meanwhile, had gone into full flirt mode. “Is this mahogany?” she purred, brushing the desk.

“How the hell do you think I know?” Ash glowered. He started grabbing piles of trash and packing them down into the dark blue plastic receptacle. “Are you two drunk or what?”

“Nope. We just had McDonalds.” Flopping onto the bed, Yvonne elbowed Sue. “I told her to stop by and check in on her lab partner.”

“We’re experiment partners,” Sue replied stiffly. “Nothing more important than that.”

“Pft.” Yvonne raked her eyes over Ash as he squashed himself into a desk chair and tucked an elbow against the desk. He was clearly shooting for a rakish air but Sue could see his wariness, his bemusement that he’d managed to collect a number of pretty girls he had no idea what to do with. “That’s what she says now!” 

“Please ignore her,” Sue said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your extra credit thing…”

“It’s not extra credit.” Ash gestured toward his desk, upon which ten or so tools had been lain out. “It’s plans for a new alarm system.”

“Oh,” said Sue. 

“You can’t be too safe,” he said. “Never.” He ran a finger across his carefully organized plans, before turning toward the two of them. “Have any big revelations about me yet?”

“None outside of the usual ones,” Sue declared. Yvonne laughed aloud, and Sue pinched her knee so hard she cried out. “What about me?”

“I’ve got one word for you kid,” Ash said, leaning forward in his chair to deliver his judgment with the greatest amount of disdain. “Nosey.”

“NOSEY?” Sue couldn’t abide by that, even as Ash laughed at her expression. “Excuse me for caring about you.”

Ash’s eyes narrowed, but he rolled his eyes. “You have nothing to do, don’t you? You’re bored off your ass, so you decided to bug me. Is that it?”

“No,” insisted Yvonne. “We decided to test how long it would take to drive you crazy. You passed.”

“You ain’t the first and you won’t be the last.” Ash strode to his front door and yanked it open. “Now get out of my apartment.”

Yvonne grabbed her purse and sighed in Sue’s direction. “Can you believe this? I didn’t even get to kiss him.”

“And you never will,” Ash said, shutting the door. “Scram.”

Back on the streets in record time, Sue’s ears were overloaded with Yvonne’s vociferous whining. “You’d think a guy who’s as lonely as he is wouldn’t turn down a little company.”

“Yvonne, don’t you get it? He doesn’t want to get close to anybody again. It’s too much of a risk and he doesn’t think it’s worth it. Not to mention how weird you just made me look – thanks a lot for that – and how much pride he’d have to swallow to get close to another woman.”

Yovnne frowned at Sue thoughtfully. “…You’re really taking this psychiatry stuff seriously, huh?”

“Let’s please just go home and forget this ever happened, okay?”

Yvonne sighed. “Let’s go.”

But Sue was haunted that night by the memory of Ash’s light – dim and yellow – glowning from beneath his door. Isolating himself was no solution at all, but it seemed to be the only one he was willing to take.

 

*** 

The following afternoon, Sue had headed straight from her last class to the library. There she buried herself into her calculus homework with a cup of Coke and a bag of Lays. There were a number of problems she didn’t and couldn’t understand, and after a chat with the librarian she browsed through the card catalog and came up with two different volumes of mathematic exercises. Her brain was felt stubborn, inflexible, unwilling to absorb the parade of facts before her as she tried to skim through them. It wasn’t the easiest thing to grasp when you were also grappling with your psychology project. She’d nearly chewed her way through her pencil when Ash showed up.

“Look,” he opened up, without even bothering to greet her. “I’m sorry I kicked the two of you out of my place last night. I have a lot on my mind and you just happened to be in the way. Wrong place wrong time. Got it.”

She peered at him over the tops of her glasses. “Thanks for the comfort.” Flat as you please.

“All right. Want a pizza? I’ll buy you a pizza.” He clearly hated every single second of this little speech. Sue didn’t feel like making it easier for him, so she remained utterly mute. “He rolled his eyes. “Do you want my apology, or do you want me to blow?”

Much later, Sue would discover that Ash never apologizes for anything, and the fact that he’d come to her to offer his ‘I’m sorry’s was an incredibly rare event for Ash, rarer than a rainbow on a cloudy day, but Sue had no way of completely understanding him. “Do you know anything about prime numbers?”

“You’re doing algebra?” he asked, glad, it seemed to have all focus taken off of his groveling. 

“Calculus. But I need to know algebra to finish the project.” She sighed and rubbed her brow.

“Uh…don’t know how to break it to you, kid, but you have to know algebra to do calculus.”

“Huh,” remarked Sue quietly. This hadn’t been obvious to her. Nothing about her math class had been obvious to her. But Ash didn’t seem the type of guy who would out and out lie to her, so she put the book aside. “This is what happens when you get fast-tracked.”

“How do you know that’s what happened?” Ash was hovering over her, eyes scanning her problems, running mental calculations in a way that was obvious.

“Because I missed four months of her class,” frowned Sue, her pencil scratching between the blue lines and smutting up the paper. “I’m pretty sure she felt sorry for me.”

Ash snorted. “Been there. I think they shoved me ass-first through most of my engineering courses.” He returned the textbook to the table. “You’re looking for the coefficient of five,” he said.

“Thanks,” Sue glowered. And she knew he wouldn’t drag her to her conclusion. Staying behind her for a moment more, Ash quit his hovering and finally settled down beside her. 

“So,” he asked, “Why are you so worried about passing math? That your major?”

“No. Psych with a lit minor.”

“Thinking of cashing in in the future.”

“Only if I have to,” Sue stuck out her jaw. “What about you?”

“Engineering,” he said. “In five years, I’m gonna be designing cars for Ford.”

She sipped her soda. “If they’ll hire you.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Ash smirked, and wiggled his eyebrows. “Who wouldn’t want the king on their team, eh?” 

Sue had heard the story – for a long long time before meeting him. “When were you a king?” she found herself asking.

The story was far more entertaining when it spilled forth from his lips, and far better told when he wasn’t being reticent and charmless about it. Sue took interest in his behavior, in a sort of distant way – he wasn’t really trying to hide himself now – not that he ever really tried to before. But it was interesting to notice that he was quite willing to indulge her curiosity – perhaps beause it wasn’t directed at his current life – or the specific course of events that led to his trip back to the thirteen hundreds. He gestured and blustered, standing on his chair to effect his grander moments, to the disapproving glares of the librarian on duty that afternoon. 

“And then?”

He dismounted the chair “And then I left her,” he said. “I chugged the juice and here I am.” He sat down once more. “That’s why I am who I am. And why I’m not cool with being treated like a circus freak every time I turn around.” He cocked his head. “So what’s it like? Being the center of attention over in Chamberline.”

“I’m still not going to talk about that with you. Or anybody else,” added Sue quickly, sharply, her face turning bright red under his examination.

“Right,” Ash rolled his eyes. “Forget I asked.

“That’s not fair,” she declared, sitting straighter and glaring at him. “Why do you get to push away anybody who asks you something that makes you too uncomfortable and no matter what I do I’m stuck trying to defend myself over Carrie.” She shook her head. “It isn’t fair at all. And you know it’s because I’m just some girl who was unlucky enough to know her – I’m no damn hero, not like you.”

Ash apparently realized he’d hit a sore spot with her and endeavored to explain himself, his fingers scrabbling over her books and notes to get at the bag of chips. “That,” he declared, “is why I came up with the story. Pretty effective, isn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes. “And long-winded…I didn’t tell you you could touch…” he picked up the bag, found it empty and glared at the entire thing as if he were personally offended by it. 

His eyes landed upon a flier she’d picked up at the student union a few hours back. “Woah. What’s that about?”

She shrugged. “They’re having a rare book reading here tomorrow.” 

“What,” he licked his lips, “WHICH books?”

She shrugged. “Some volumes they bought from an estate sale in Maine, it said.” She picked the paper up and drew it closer to her aching eyes. “Recent acquisition from the Galico Fund, from the estate of Professor Raymond Knowboy…”

“…Knowby,” Ash corrected. His expression betrayed his obvious angst to her. He didn’t bother to waste time with explanations. “Which school?”

“Bangor State up in Maine.”

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, crumbling the flier. “I’ve gotta go…”

“But, Ash…” She reached for his arm but he jerked away from her as if she were a burning coal. 

“Forget it,” he said. “I’ve got plans to make. So long.”

And with that he was walking away, and Sue had no way of stopping him from leaving her both snackless and with a dazed mind that was in no way ready to finish her math assignments.

*** 

It was a curiously foggy night by the time Sue emerged into the light. She tried to keep herself warm and outpace the chill as she raced back home, but still it cut her to the very quick. Warm cocoa and cold sandwiches waited for her there, and then a restless, dream-filled night.

Carrie always picked these sorts of nights to appear to her.

Sometimes she was a wraith wrapped in blood, beyond speech but always accusing Sue of bringing on the prankfest that had escalated and killed so many. Sometimes she was a small, cowering girl hiding in the back of a broom closet, whose prayers weren’t working, who looked to Sue for clemency she could not provide. And she could be a lake of fire, bubbling blood, pouring down the side of the mountain, engulfing houses, burning people alive, incinerating the innocent and the guilty in a single moment. That was the power Carrie still held deep within Sue’s mind: this crumb of a girl whom she’d first mocked, then pitied, then respected. Sue woke shaking to a pitch-dark room and the sound of something small and solid colliding with her bedroom window.

Her eyes crawled toward it, worried along the ledge to discover tiny pebbles striking against its surface. In relief, she moved toward the window and pulled it open.

Ash stood on the lawn, staring up at her. “What do you want?” she hissed.

“Come down,” Ash demanded. “Now.”

“…Have you ever heard of the word ‘please?’”

Ash rolled his eyes and stepped back into the darkness. “I need help. C’mon, man, help me out.”

Sue frowned at Ash’s retreating form before closing the window with a grunt. She dressed in her discarded clothing as quietly as possible, then slipped out and down to the lobby. 

Ash waited under a laudanum tree, pacing back and forth, his eyes haunted. When she coughed, he looked up and gave her a swift, piercing look. “Do you have a key to the library?”

Her eyes almost crossed from the mental gymnastics required to make what he’d just asked of her make sense. “…No.”

“Fuck,” he growled under his breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Long shot. I’ve gotta get into the rare book room before they read those books.”

“Well, I can’t help you,” she snapped, rubbing her arms. “Are you sure that the book they’re going to read is the same one that professor had?”

“Almost,” Ash said. “You don’t get why I need it. That thing…ruined my life,” Ash said. “The incantations in it killed everybody I love. I don’t know why they keep dogging me when I haven’t let the damn words pass my lips in two years – but I know that if the damn thing’s read out loud, it’ll make everything worse.”

Sue bit her bottom lip. “Are you thinking of breaking in, Ash?”

“If I have to,” he said, glaring across the campus. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done something ridiculous to save the world.” Before he could elaborate, he cocked his head at her. “Thanks. So long.”

“Wait,” she called, reaching for his hand. Her fingers landed on his upper arm, and she felt every little bit of tension in his frame. “I don’t know anybody, but I have a lit minor. My professor likes me enough…maybe I could convince her to give me one. That still won’t get you into the rare book room…”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”

“No it’s not.”

He turned and glared at her over his shoulder. “Hah.”

“Hah yourself. I have a brilliant idea.”

Ash tucked his hands upon his hips. “Spill.”

She gave him a little shrug, then reached for the street lamp. “We could try to break in.” She swung about it lazily, trying to allow the cold metal to keep her skin cold in the humid air. 

“Right. Already had that idea- there’s an alarm on the back door.”

“But there’s only a fire alarm attached to the service entrance in the back.” She shrugged. “Wherever I go, I know where all the exits are.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is there any way to disarm it?”

“That I don’t know,” Sue admitted. “You’re the technical genius, man, you figure it out.”

Ash rolled his eyes. “Y’know something?”

“What?” She swung back toward him, toward the other side of the poll. 

“I didn’t think you’d go for it. You seem like such a goody-goody. 

She shrugged. “So do you.”

His jaw dropped, but somehow he managed a quick recovery. “Why do you care about me, anyway?”

She shrugs. “Because you’re interesting.” She strides in the direction of the library before adding, “and if you die, I’ll probably end up with a ‘d’.”

*** 

It was easy enough to wiggle their way into the back of the library, but getting past the alarm hooked to the door of the rare book room would be far more difficult. Sue maintained her position as look-out while Ash fiddled with the wiring hooked up within it, swearing and sweating quietly as he went.

“How many hours til sunrise?”

Sue frowned. “Do I look like I’m the national weather service?” She fiddled with her watch. “It was two when we left. Maybe we have two hours? It opens at six.”

“And the reading’s at seven.” Ash let out a triumphant grunt as he split the wire. “All right.” He slid the door open, and together they held their breath, but no blaring alarm sounded to warn them of impending doom. Ash reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter, and a wide-eyed Sue grabbed his arm. 

“What are you…?” She trailed off when Ash pointed to the slight glow his lighter cast upon the shelves.

They crept through the silent piles of books, the musty-smelling and moribund shelves of old volumes and boxes of abandoned files. Ash held Sue by her wrist and guided her over step stools and ladders.

“What are we looking for?”

“I dunno,” he growled. “Something covered with human skin and filled with creepy drawings? Y’know – SCARY BEYOND ALL REASON?”

“SHH!” hissed Sue. They passed through the archived materials section, which was the last part of the library. Sue was ready to give up, but then she noticed a group of books, wrapped in tissue paper, lying pressed flat with bungee cords wrapped around them. Ash’s breath came out in a shuddering gasp; he paused and watched the table as if he were afraid the ancient tome might pop up from its wooden cradle and try to kill him.

Sue perused the volume from a safe distance, her eyes washing over the leathery cover as a creepy sensation crawled over her nerves. “That’s it?”

Ash bobbed his chin once. “This is how they make it into this world. The incantation, the spells – all of that shit – are locked up in that book.” His metallic fingers extended toward it once more before pausing in hesitation. “I’d rather never set eyes on it again…” he squared his shoulders and glared down at the thing, fingers enclosing its spine. “But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” 

Yet Sue remained visibly hesitant, even as he steeled himself for his internal fight. “Why don’t you just leave it for the professors to handle?” she asked. “You don’t have to stick your neck out just because you’re the only one who knows about what the book can do. Maybe if you tell one of our professors they’ll..”

“They’ll what? Stick it in a cage? I’ve tried to dump the blasted thing, but no matter what I do it keeps coming back to me. Because it’s my destiny.” He cut her off quickly when she tried to fight him. “That’s why these bastards are constantly up my ass. That’s what I told you about earlier. I’m Promised, baby, and they want me because I’m all that’s standing between our world and the ass-end of Armageddon.” 

Sue frowned. Ash hefted the book up, then struggled as he tried to figure out where to tuck it. She shrugged; she did have her back pocket, but it wasn’t nearly wide enough. Ash sighed and yanked his pants away from his belly, shoving the book down his pant. “Alright,” he hissed. “Let’s make tracks.”

But suddenly Sue’s fingers were tight, sharp talons scraping along his arm. “Ash,” she hissed. 

“Cripes, why the hell are you freaking out now?” he glared at Sue. “Ovary up and…” he trailed off.

Suddenly the smooth, unguarded path back to the front door was littered with a few hundred plain clothed security guards. 

“Stand back,” one of them ordered. 

“Sir, keep your hands up!” 

“If I could I would, mac!” Ash whined. His jaw clenched closed hard, but no quip issued forth. Instead, he twitched and reached for his groin as an audible chomping sound sent him to his knees in pain.

Sue too knelt to help him, but the guards kept bellowing their requests for Ash’s obedience. “Can’t you see he’s hurt? “she snapped. “Put those things away…”

“Did you just call a gun a thing?” Ash gasped out, somewhere between laughter and a technicolor yawn. Reaching for and finding Ash’s metal wrist, Sue gave it a mighty pull and the book shot over the waistband of his pants and through the air, spinning and flapping about like a wounded bat.

And making obscenely-loud wounded bat noises, too.

The campus cops scattered, screaming and squawking orders for backup before one landed with a loud shriek of delight upon the back of a particularly juicy-looking fellow with a thickly-muscled neck. It took a long, bloody bite, growling out its orgiastic delight as the floor turned into a puddle of gore.

“Come on!” Ash shouted, grabbing Sue by the hand and fleeing toward the fire exit. Briefly, Sue flicked a look over her shoulder and had to muffle her gasp of horror as they ran for it. The cops’ motto had transformed from ‘to protect and serve’ to ‘we eat our own’, and there was nothing she could do for any of them.

They found safety behind the medical and science building. Gasping for air and covered in sweat, Ash leaned against the brick and mortar behind him and let out a long sigh of relief.

Sue meanwhile hunched over and clutched her knees, trying to regain her sense of balance and self. “Is that how it spreads?” she wondered. “If it is, why aren’t you changing?”

“It didn’t break my skin. Besides, it doesn’t get to me. Not any more.” He shrugged. “It took me three damn times when I was new to the game. I still don’t really know how I made it back.” He patted the front pocket of his denim work shirt. “Just that when I came back, I had my girlfriend’s necklace in my hand. So I keep it right with me whenever I can.”

“For good luck?” Sue asked.

“Nah. Survival.” He took a step toward her. “Come on. I’ll get you back to the dorm and then figure out how to stop this.”

She pulled away from his hand, shaking her head and wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m coming. You know I can take care of myself – Hell, I’m the one who warned you about those things…” she heard a crash, followed by a scream within. “I won’t be a bother to you, I promise.”

Ash sized her up, but she could see his gaze give a thoughtful flicker. “Stay behind me and do what I say, got it?”

“Yes to the first, no to the second,” she said.

“Now’s not the time to be a pain in the ass,” Ash growled. “This is your first time at the rodeo, remember?”

Her eyes widened, staring at a spot on the brick ledge over his shoulder. “Ash…”

“It’s not one of those chick things, is it?” he interrupted. “Don’t go getting all dramatic on me, baby. Oh sure, you’re smaller than me and weaker than me…”

“ASH.”

“…But you make up for it in other ways, so who cares?…What, do I have something hanging out of my…?” He followed the path of her gaze back to the wall behind him – where perched an obviously infested owl. It cackled before divebombing toward Ash’s eyes. “I’ll swallow your soul!” squawked the owl. “swallow your soooo…” 

CLICK. Ash raised the barrel of his shotgun and placed it to the creature’s rotting beak in mid-flight. 

“Uh oh,” it cried, before it caught a bullet to the forehead.

Ash took a moment to stare at its molding corpse before delivering a final verdict. “There’s your last hoot,” he remarked, grabbing Sue’s hand and dragging her off.

**** 

They passed by three shrieking Deadites on their way around the medical building, one of them dragging a dentist’s chair and waving a drill menacingly, its nervy metallic whirring sound causing them both to shudder as they ducked into the crowd, trying to best blend in with the rotting, floating, giggling rabble. Once the crowd cleared, they raced across the cement-covered pathway, heading northward. Ash took the lead, hauling himself over the dirt and rocks and dragging Sue behind him as he darted toward the main building. He paused at the only opening they had – a window in the basement. 

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” Then he ripped the sleeve from his shirt, wrapped it around his wrist and punched through the glass, to the naked astonishment of Sue. Without waiting for her response, he knocked the rest of the glass from the frame, then clambered through the gap, smooshing Sue through the space behind him. 

The drop to the ground was surprisingly short, and he landed with a muffled groan. Sue ended up landing face-down in Ash’s embrace, to boot.

And then he held onto her for an obscene length of time, until she squirmed around and tried to land upon her feet. “Want to let me down?”

He gave her a little grin before letting her go. “Just had to make sure you weren’t hurt.”

“So what’s the plan?” she wondered, rubbing her upper arms nervously as she glanced at their meagerly decorated surroundings. There were broken desks lying upside-down on the floor, and piles of old scraps from the various rooms heaped in awkward piles. “Were you going to leave me down hre?”

“Nah,” he replied quietly. “You stay away from the window. We’ll regroup til it gets a little quieter.”

She eyeballed him. “Do yoy u mean you’re going to let those people suffer without finding out a way to stop all of this?”

He shrugged. “They’re acceptable casualties. What’s more important is us keeping this thing from spreading around.” He pulled the saw from its place upon his back and started checking his gas reserves. “So we have to protect the dorms. So far it ain’t made it that far East, but we’re gonna have to wait til it’s a little quieter to make sure of that.”

Sue eyed him. “You’re hiding.”

Ash’s expression darkened, and he tried to mow her down with a disdainful glare while fiddling with the gas cap. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“While hiding,” she pointed out, moving a slight distance from his cruel expression. “I know you don’t know how to stop this thing,” she added, “but we need to do something before the whole campus…”

“You don’t think I know that?” he growled. He chased her toward the staircase with his menacing, hooded eyes. “Don’t you get that I know what’ll happen if I don’t fix it? I tried to get the book, damn it – I tried to contain the entire situation! But y’know what intentions do.” He glared at his metal fingers as the salty pain of all of Sue’s failed deeds filled her mouth. “You get it.” Ash kept staring at the saw lying dormant in his palm, and then added, “when it’s quiet, we move. If I have to go without you, I will. Got that?”

She gave a quick bob of her head. “I can keep up with you. You saw, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I saw,” he growled. “Just keep your head covered. Don’t let them get at your body.” His eyes shot toward the stairs. There wasn’t a sound; not even a skitter echoing over their heads. But he had turned white, as if he’d seen a ghost.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sue. She lurched out of the darkness to grab his forearm. “What is…”

He struck her, hard and swift, across the brow, sending Sue sprawling to the ground with a muffled cry of surprise. 

“Oh. Sorry.” Quietly, Ash helped her to the feet.

“What the hell is your problem?!” Sue cried, holding his rapidly purpling cheek.   
“Look, I don’t like basements. Got it?” He gestured toward her with his fleshly palm, the saw clutched in his metal one. “Let’s go.” Sue didn’t protest, though as Ash dragged her up the stairs like a doll she resented his forcefulness. 

He had cut through the basement door to get them both out of it, the saw whining and spilling dust down her boot. The hall outside the cafeteria was deserted, and when Ash kicked through the double-doors to stroll into the safety in the cafeteria, it was cool, still, and as empty as the rest of the building.

Ash tugged on her hand, then cocked his head. “Gotta go get you geared up. Come with me to the kitchen…” he frowned. Sue stood quietly in the doorway, her eyes staring far into the distance. “Yo?” he snapped his fingers at her. “Prom girl?”

Sue, obviously, could not see Ash – she couldn’t really see anything but the one image she’d never witnessed; that of a blood-soaked Carrie white, standing in the middle of a flaming gym.

“Sue?” the questioning voice kept asking her, but Sue walked blindly toward the bloody figure of the blonde girl as she occupied a circle of flame-red balloons.

“Hey,” Sue ventured to the motionless girl. Then, very quietly. “Do you have a cigarette?” 

To her surprise, there was no rebuke given in return. Carrie frowned, shaking her head – the haircut she’d gotten from the flames swayed, brown and burnt, on either side of her head. “It’s a sin to hurt yourself that way,” she said. Then, with a great rush of intensity, she said, “Sue. Sue, I’m scared.”

“Why?” Sue wondered. “Carrie…what are you even doing here? I thought I saw you…”

“It’s them,” she said intently. “It’s them, crawling and biting on my soul.” She wrapped an arm around herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. But when I heard them calling for me – for ME, Sue – I couldn’t stop it. I…I wanted to belong to something so badly that joining them sounded good. Mama warned me, she warned me…She said if I sinned, I’d burn in hell…” Sue couldn’t believe that Carrie was still going on about sin, even in the middle of the chaos they were fulcrumed to. 

“But you’re not in hell,” Sue reminded her. “You’re right here with me…Carrie?” she reached for the girl’s arm and reared back with a cry – her skin was burning hot. Then the girl’s head pivoted toward Sue, a dark grimace decorating her face.

“We have Carrie’s soul! She burns in torment – just as you will!”

Sue shrieked, falling backward, into Ash’s hands, which in turn shook her so violently that she slapped him.

He slapped her right back, and with a great blast of clarity Sue realized that Carrie was nowhere to be found. The gymnasium was deserted, and Ash stood there holding her, staring down as if she’d suddenly sprouted two heads.

“It’s all right! You’re all right!” he was saying.

“I…I saw her…”

“Bloody Carrie?” She socked him in the arm. “Take that as a yes. She wasn’t here. Those bastards – they’re trying to take your mind.”

Sue shuddered. “It was terrible. How do you stop it?”

Ash bit his lip. Then his eyes narrowed, casting themselves toward the kitchen. “We suit up,” he said.

*** 

Hidden within the recesses of the kitchen were several large butcher knives, an electric turkey carver, and a meat cleaver – all were repurposed by Sue and Ash on their way out of the kitchen. Together, they left the kitchen and made their way through the now teaming streets and back toward the housing common.

But they didn’t get that far.

The half-dead, possessed humans had gathered near the common, and the school’s enormous statue of WEB DuBois. Perched on the pedestal, wearing the tattered remnants of a Confederate Soldier’s uniform, a skeleton with bright red tufts of hair brandished a sword and culled the grumbling rebel’s attention. 

“I don’t believe it. They dug up the president,” Ash growled.

“What?!” Sue whispered.

“OF THE UNIVERSITY, MAN!”

The dusty leader swiveled his head, taking in the sight of his dusty brethren as his jaw parted to let forth his speech. “My fellow deadmen!” he cried. “We’ve returned to this mortal coil for one reason! To lay waste to the mortals.”

“Damn, I was hoping they were back to figure out who shot JR!”

“SHH!” Sue hissed, prodding his ribs.

“Gather your armor!” he shouted. “And bring me the head of the Promised One! The man among you who brings me the promised’s head will sit at my right hand for eternity!”

“DEATH TO THE MORTALS!” shouted Sue and Ash, echoing the Deadites’ tone while hiding their faces. 

“Death to the mortals!” echoed Sue and Ash, managing to start a chant that distracted the Deadites’ simple minds for long enough to allow them leeway to scuttle toward the dorms.

To their mutual amazement, the entire place was asleep, including Yvonne. It seemed that the fraternity across the way had indulged in yet another kegger, and the entire dorm had partaken in the festivities in some form or another. They were all next to impossible to stir to life, but Ash and Sue landed upon the correct idea, with some trial and error; fresh coffee and Danish seemed to raise all of them from physical limbo.

Ash’s doomsaying didn’t faze Sue; she hovered beside him as he mounted an empty wine crate and told them they were in for the fight of their lives; that they’d wanted to be responsible for themselves for ages – well, this was their chance! He asked who among them was with him and it drew a standing ovation.

He grinned and put them to work.

While the skeletons drilled in the quad, Ash’s chemistry class was busy bringing hot cooking oil to the highest point of heat possible; while they armed themselves with Guns Ash was passing out mallets and other bone-devastating weapons. There were plenty of bats and hockey sticks, and knives sharp enough to pierce flesh in the rec room. Ash had them bustling about creating homemade St. Elmo’s Fire when the first charge began.

And so there was a siege. Sue had never seen anything like it, and while Ash had demanded she hide in the basement “for her own good,” she could not resist the lure of trying to help. He found her dismembering a body at the back of the rec room and pulled her off its prone form.

“Get the hell back over the barricade and stay there!” he demanded. 

“No! Damn it, Ash, I can take care of myself!” to prove it, she cross-checked a skeleton in the face with her Louisville slugger and set it sprawling into dust upon her feet. “These are the sorts of rotten motherfuckers who took Carrie! She was tortured enough in her time on earth and it’s not fair that keep happening after she’s died!”

A look of understanding passed between them, but his anger ruled his actions. Ash grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” Ash shouted. “Every time I find a girl like you, I end up losing her.”

Another skeleton arrived, cackling in his ear – Ash crushed this one with his metal fist. “All right. But don’t ask me to save you, got it?”

She nodded curtly and whirled back toward the fray.

The next time she saw him, he was liberating the group’s leader from its head.

**** 

By dawn, the world was a mess of melted flesh and powdered bone. The house had lost ten students, but otherwise stood tall, ladling buckets of water out the window to wash the blood away.

Ash stood apart from the clean-up effort, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. When Sue approached him and rested a hand against his upper arm, he cringed, then struggled to calm down.

“So,” he said, “did I help you with your essay?”

She reached into the pocket of her jeans; yep, the note was still there. She raised an eyebrow and groped around through the refuse on the curb to dig out a ballpoint pen. It took her two test runs to get it to work, but once it did she quickly began altering the note. 

Sue handed it over to Ash, and he pinched it between his fingers and raised an eyebrow. “Responsible. Tough. Loyal. Hardworking. Understanding.” He handed it back. “What, no cute?”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you want me to cross it out and write in ‘banana nose’?”

He glowered. “You didn’t ask me to show you yours.”

“Didn’t think you had it on you.”

But he did. In his back pocket lay one word on one scrap of paper, and he showed it to her with great pride.

“Groovy.”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses characters from **Carrie** and **The Evil Dead Series** , all of whom are the property of the **Stephen King** or **Renaissance Pictures**. No money was gained from the writing of this fanfiction and all are used under the strictures of of the Berne Convention.


End file.
